1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control panel for a car and a lens for the control panel (hereinafter referred to as a "car control-panel lens"), and particularly relates to a car control-panel lens which is furnished in an integral-type control panel for controlling an audio system and an air conditioner in the car so that the lens can control the shielding and conducting of light from light sources to the control panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
As such a conventional car control-panel lens, there is, for example, a lens of the type to be furnished in such a control panel as shown in FIG. 10. FIG. 10 is a front view illustrating a conventional control panel. This is a control panel for audio, and provided at the center of an instrument panel for controlling a compact disk (CD) player and a cassette tape recorder. This control panel is designed to illuminate and indicate a CD insertion hole 101, an operating switch light-emission indication portion 102, a cassette insertion hole 103, an operating switch light-emission indication portion 104, and an operating dial 105, through a car control-panel lens, by means of light sources such as LEDs or the like.
However, in a conventional car control-panel lens, light conducting bodies as light conducting portions for conducting light from light sources to desired places of this control panel are provided separately and individually in respective light-emission places of the control panel. That is, it is necessary to form light conducting bodies of transparent resin into shapes respectively corresponding to the CD insertion hole 101, the operating switch light-emission indication portion 102, the cassette insertion hole 103, the operating switch light-emission indication portion 104, and the operating dial 105, and it is necessary to attach the light conducting bodies to those portions respectively. It is therefore necessary to manufacture the parts separately from each other. Accordingly, there is such a problem that the number of manufacturing steps may increase to thereby increase the manufacturing cost, and the number of parts may increase so that the assembling of the parts becomes troublesome to thereby increase the assembling cost, etc. There is a room for improvement on those points.